Sunday relaxing... and being a champion?!?

Hey everyone! Happy Sunday!!
I have some exciting news to share! It involves the extremely sore legs I've had for the past two days, the goofy grin that's been plastered to my face for said two days and a title I never thought I would achieve. Ever.

But we'll get back to that. Firstly- my relaxing brekky that followed a very slow and easy-paced 8km run this morning (exactly what I needed- no racing, fast paced runs today!!)

Sunday morning chocolate pancakes with a kiwi-fruit green smoothie!

These two (very brown and spotty) boys had be lurking in the fruit bowl for aaaages and I was certain someone was going to throw them out soon thinking they were inedible... when really they are super sweet and awesome at this stage! So I jumped on them (not literally, these two definitely would have smooshed if I had), froze one and mashed up another to be used to make some pancakes!!

I didn't measure anything out today, but there are a ton of pancake recipes on my recipe page- so if you want some pancakes, head on over there!

Into a bowl went some wholemeal spelt flour, oat bran, rolled oats, flaxseed with cocoa and berries, baking powder and chia seeds.
Then I added in 1/2 mashed banana (froze other half and used half a frozen banana in the smoothie) and some almond milk (maybe around 1 cup?)

Mixed together until combined and spooned onto a heated non-stick fry-pan with some coconut oil:

And flip:

And place on paper towel:

And top with all the peanut butter!!

The green smoothie was simply 1 frozen kiwi-fruit + 1/2 frozen banana + 2 big handfuls of kale + 3 big scoops greek yoghurt + 1/2 cup water- whazzed in a blender until smooth:

Nom.

Now back to my exciting news and the reason I've been walking like a cow-boy for the past two days.
So I mentioned in Thursday's thinking out loud post that I had a 3km race coming up on Friday. This was the cross country trials for school and I really wanted to get in.

If you remember last year I was in the team and really enjoyed it, so definitely wanted to make the team again this year. The thing that was worrying me was how I'd increased my distance so much and had only started doing smaller runs about 2-3 weeks ago- my pace was shocking! To be able to run for multiple hours, you have to go slowly. Like really slowly. So I wasn't sure how I would fair in this super fast 3km.

The week leading up to the race I only did 3km fast paced runs and could sort of feel myself improving, but I still wasn't convinced.. I'd only done about 3 3km runs. It was nearing the start of the race, all the competitive runners were pushing to the front, I was trying to stay closer to the front but as usual my inability to be pushy left me closer to the back. And then the gun sounded and we were off! For about 15 seconds before we all stopped trying to get through the school's tiny gate (seriously not the ideal start)

I said in Thursday's post that my strategy would be to go slow and steady at the beginning and let everyone else get tired after sprinting the first half... however I found that the pace I had been training in was fast enough to pass most people. I was flying for the first half and eventually I was coming second for the year 11 girls and could see the girl coming first around 5 meters ahead of me.

I'm not going to lie and say that the race was easy- it wasn't. I was tired, I was hurting, I didn't really know how much longer I could keep this pace up for and then we turned the corner to head back to the school and back up the hill (the entire course is a hill- half of it is down hill, turn round, and the rest is uphill!). This was what nearly got me. Then I caught the girl in front of me. We were running side by side, my heart was leaping at the prospect of getting runner up. We kept pushing each other harder and ahrder until she told me to just go. To win.

So somehow I manged to up my pace. To run hard through the school gates and through that finish line in 13:29! To finish the race as Champion Girl.

WHAT!?!

I still can't fully believe it and I'm sure I shocked every single person in my year when my name was called at the trophy presentation (Steph Innes? How did she win?) and that just made my smile even bigger.

So I suppose all that running must have paid off :)

And what do you do after you've run your heart out and won a cross country race? Why you walk home and then continue on to work an extremely busy shift at a restaurant from 6-10pm. Tired doesn't even begin to describe it.

Here's my rushed dinner from that night as I hurried to scoff it down and make it to work on time:
2 boiled eggs, toast with Vegemite and mashed avocado:

And mashed potato and sweet potato:

No judgement guys- I just needed food!!

And that's what's been happening around these parts lately. And, yes, I'm still in shock :D

Your turn:
Do love it when you have brown speckled bananas to use for baking/ freezing etc.? It seems to be a rarity in this household. We are banana eating freaks!
Did/ do you run cross country in school?
A meal you simply throw together when you just need food. NOW?

I hope you all have a lovely relaxing Sunday, eat some delicious foods and do something you love! Bye for now friends!! :D